High Energy Colliding Beams; What Is Their Future?

TL;DR

The paper discusses the future prospects of high-energy colliding beams, emphasizing the need for better collaboration among scientific communities to ensure successful and financially viable advancements beyond current collider technologies.

Contribution

It offers a critical perspective on the future of colliders, highlighting the importance of community interaction and realistic goals in advancing high-energy physics.

Findings

Current collider efforts face theoretical and practical challenges.

Enhanced collaboration could improve scientific and financial outcomes.

Future collider development requires realistic goals and community engagement.

Abstract

The success of the first few years of LHC operations at CERN, and the expectation of more to come as the LHC performance improves, are already leading to discussions of what should be next for both proton-proton and electron-positron colliders. In this discussion I see too much theoretical desperation caused by the so far unsuccessful hunt for what is beyond the Standard Model, and too little of the necessary interaction of the accelerator, experimenter, and theory communities necessary for a scientific and engineering success. Here, I give my impressions of the problem, its possible solution, and what is needed to have both a scientifically productive and financially viable future.